


Nociception

by asocialconstruct



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Blood, Dubious Consent, M/M, Non Consensual, Sadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-03
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 01:10:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/668541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asocialconstruct/pseuds/asocialconstruct
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t difficult, once Cain said to do it.  All Deimos had to do was look back, Cook looking him up and down when they all stood at attention during inspection.  Major warnings for dark, sadistic Cook and graphic imagery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nociception

It wasn’t difficult, once he worked up the nerve to do it.  

Cook watched them from time to time during training, looking for something.  Bering and Encke said Cook was just watching for talent for the top navigators, but with a little strain in their voices, a glance to the side that said they knew they were lying even if they didn’t want to think about it.  Deimos had fucked Bering just long enough to start to read him, the old man lonely and looking for someone to listen to him talk about golfing and his cabin and the novel he’d write when he retired more than he was looking for someone to fuck.  Bering wanted someone to laugh at his jokes and pour him another glass of scotch after a long day and say nothing when he couldn’t keep it up.  Deimos could do that.

But Cook, Cook was looking for something, for something that no one wanted to talk about, and everyone knew it.  Cain wanted information, more than what they’d been getting from Bering, so it was up to Deimos to work up the nerve to find out what Cook was looking for.  

It wasn’t difficult, once Cain said to do it.  All Deimos had to do was look back, Cook looking him up and down when they all stood at attention during inspection.  Deimos held his eyes, glancing at the floor and back up, calculating.  Cook could find a navigator if he wanted a sweet ingenue; he was looking for something more dangerous if he was looking for a fighter.  When Deimos looked back up, Cook gave him a faint smile and a cold look, and Deimos swallowed hard, wondering what Cook had finally found.

* * *

A meeting in Cook’s office.  Team reassignment, or a scolding for ignoring his navigator, it could have been anything, should have been something perfectly innocent, except that they both knew it wasn’t, and Cook’s dead-eyed assistant probably did too.

Cook closed the door behind him and waved him to a chair without a word.  Then just stood there looking him over in silence, arms crossed over his chest and weighing him.  Deimos met his eyes, steady, trying to steady himself.  If he got past this he could get Cain what he wanted, and all he had to do was figure out Cook.  He was just a navigator, after all.

Deimos flicked his knife down—Cook wanted someone dangerous, someone to rough him up, and it was probably part of the game for him that Deimos looked fragile.  Anyone who found out would think that it had been Deimos getting fucked, never think that Cook went looking for pretty fighters to bend him over his own desk and fuck him rough.  

Navigators were fucked in the head like that, wanting to get used and never have anyone find out about it, no reason the one in command would be any different from any of the rest of them.

Cook pinned his wrist to the arm of the chair, though, smiling slowly, and Deimos knew then he’d been wrong.

* * *

It only hurt at first.  A bite here, Cook’s dull nails on his back and a slap there, rougher than Cain but not by much.  Barely any lube and no preamble, but Deimos knew how to deal with that.  Just shut it out and memorized everything he could see, take note of it for Cain.  Cook was easy, didn’t want a performance out of him, didn’t care if Deimos pretended to like it, didn’t care that he didn’t get hard, just wanted to fuck him.  

Easy and simple, better that way than Bering or even Cain, who expected things and wanted things.  Cook didn’t want anything Deimos could give, only what he could have taken from him.  Deimos just didn’t have much left to take, and didn’t care who took it.

* * *

It was only pain.  Pain is such a transitory thing, it’s only the body that feels.  Deimos had gotten through basic, through the military, through life because he knew how to shut it out, how to be more and do more than his body would let him.  Other fighters, the big ones, the strong ones, they sometimes didn’t make it because they let their bodies destroy their minds, every small pain and weakness chipping away at their sanity because their whole lives were their bodies, letting it drag them down and trap them.  They’d never learned to be anything but their bodies, never learned to disconnect the two, never had to ignore one to save the other.

Deimos had learned to ignore his early.  Pain was only as real as he allowed it to be.

There’s pain of the body and pain of the mind—animals have nociception, the reflex of drawing away from harmful stimuli, but only higher creatures have _pain_ , because real pain is a memory and an emotion and a feeling.  Crabs and insects have nociception.  Worms have nociception, tiny things with no eyes and no memory and only the barest sketch of mouths.  Nociception is one of life’s most basic features, more basic than sex.  It’s a measurable response to stimuli, a crackle of electricity along the nervous system, and it flashed and passed in a moment.  Nothing more than an instinctual response, like breathing, and like anything else it could be suppressed, held back, pushed away and practiced at, like taking a deep breath and swimming under water.

Most of the human experience of pain is actually fear—fear of the memory of pain, fear of the repetition of pain, fear of the permanence of pain.  Deimos pushed that away, memorizing the books lining Cook’s shelves, the papers and notes scattered across his desk and in his waste paper basket, anything to push out the memory of pain, the fear of it, the experience of it, to bring back something useful to Cain instead of his weak failings.

He watched Cook trace the knife along his scars, no feeling in the center of the hard white skin, glossy and dead.  If he wasn’t looking he’d never have known there was a knife there at all.  Cook watched his face, waiting for something, and when the knife point finally brought out a delicate bead of red, Cook handed him the knife.  

* * *

It was weeks before Cain noticed, or if he’d noticed, weeks before he said anything.  They never fucked anymore, not with the new pretty disposable navigator waiting for Cain every night; no reason for Cain to see the blisters, the bruises, the jagged black stitches where Cook had grimly sewn up the deep, precise gashes Deimos had made himself.

So he swallowed around Cain’s beautiful cock, steadying himself with one hand, trying to make it last while he could, before Cain finished and went back to his pretty navigator.  Cain leaned back against the wall, eyes narrow and bored, watching as Deimos wrapped his good hand around the base of Cain’s cock, trying to bring him off, so it wouldn’t be so long before they did this again.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Cain jerked him back by the hair, forcing Deimos to look at him, practically thrown backwards.  “Since when have you been right handed? The fuck is this?” Cain demanded, dragging Deimos’ hand up. The burn oozed, hot and red around the edges, the center gone a sick grey yellow. 

Deimos shook his head, leaning back in to suck Cain’s cock, not interested in talking about it, but Cain’s hand tightened on his wrist. “Nothing,” Deimos whispered finally.  “An accident.”

“It’s a fucking _cigarette burn_ , I’m not a fucking idiot.  Who the fuck did this to you, I’ll fucking kill him—“

“Cook.”

Cain took a sharp breath, staring at him.  Finally understanding.  It hadn’t been difficult; all he’d done was what Cain had asked.


End file.
